'Suspiria' Remake Featurette Teaches You The Secret Language Of Dance

There's a lot of differences between the original Suspiria and the 2018 remake. One thing that sets Luca Guadagnino's film apart from Dario Argento's original is a whole lot of dancing. Even though both films are set in a dance academy, Guadagnino's movie is the one that devotes the most time to the act and art of dancing. Scene after scene focuses on characters (mostly Dakota Johnson's Susie) flailing and stomping around in almost hypnotic fashion.

All that dancing took considerable effort to create, and Guadagnino turned to choreographer Damien Jalet to make it happen. In the above featurette, Jalet talks about how Guadagnino wanted to take the concept of witchcraft associated with dancing even further than the original film. As Jalet points out, dance really isn't explored in Argento's Suspiria, and Guadagnino wanted to give the art of movement a "wide place" in his new interpretation.

Dakota Johnson says she wanted to do all her own dancing in the movie, but things didn't exactly turn out that way. Jalet ended up designing such complex movements that some things were physically impossible for a non-professional dancer to perform (although Johnson did have a few years of dance training long before making the film).

"When we started talking," Guadagnino said in a past interview, "me and Damien, our point of conversation started on the concept of what was the experience of the avant-garde dancers and choreographers back in the time of where the movie is set. Plus, the fact that we wanted to make sure that this dance that we were going to pull off was going to be something that was tied with, let's say, avant-garde, but also something ancient because as we know witches are there since a long time."

Suspiria is now available on digital, and will be released on Blu-ray January 29, 2019.

Young American dancer Susie Bannion arrives in 1970s Berlin to audition for the world-renowned Helena Markos Dance Company, stunning the troupe's famed choreographer, Madame Blanc, with her raw talent. When she vaults to the role of lead dancer, Olga, the previous lead, breaks down and accuses the company's female directors of being witches. As rehearsals intensify for the ?nal performance of the company's signature piece, Susie and Madame Blanc grow strangely close, suggesting that Susie's purpose in the company goes beyond merely dancing. Meanwhile, an inquisitive psychotherapist trying to uncover the company's dark secrets enlists the help of another dancer, who probes the depths of the studio's hidden underground chambers, where horri?c discoveries await.